Themes

The Navy's People

• Naval Lives

  • Edward Pitcairn Jones

  • William Waller

  • Loftus William Jones

  • JT Cull

  • A C Green

  • Philip Needell

  • Astle Scott Littlejohns

  • EJF Records

  • Clifford Simkin

  • Frank Clements

  • Margaret Hodgson

  • Charles Sheppard

  • 'Buster' Crabb

  • Sir Frank Twiss

  • Jeff Tall

  • Phil Macquaid

  • Julia Massey

  • Nick Vaux

  • Wayland Austin

• In Focus: Women in the Navy

• In Focus: Recreation and Time off

• In Focus: Discipline and Punishment

Learning

• How To: Understand Naval Medals

Julia Massey

Article highlights

• The career of a Naval nurse who served in the Falklands War

• Early career

• Preparing for service in the South Atlantic

• Nursing aboard a hospital ship

• After the Falklands

Preparing for service in the South Atlantic

The Falklands War broke out in March 1982. Julia Massey served as part of the Falklands Task Force from April to August. She worked in the high dependency ward of the Royal Naval Hospital Ship 'SS Uganda'.

Massey served as part of the Royal Navy's Task Force in the Falklands conflict from April to August 1982 in the high dependency ward of the Royal Naval Hospital Ship 'SS Uganda'.

Oil painting of SS Uganda (RNM)

The staff onboard formed one of the Navy's medical teams, consisting of nurses, medical assistants, medical technicians and doctors. Massey and the other nurses were sailing into new territory as it had been rare for women to serve in a war zone prior to this conflict.

The teaching staff at the Royal Naval Hospital at Haslar had to quickly put together a teaching syllabus for the nurses and medical staff who were due to head to the South Atlantic at the outbreak of the war.

The medical teams set off after only two days of intensive training, although the long journey south provided ample opportunity for further training and drills. A number of teaching staff also made up the surgical and nursing teams.

The medical team flew to Gibraltar whilst the SS Uganda, a children's educational cruise ship, was prepared. The ship underwent a refit as a hospital ship over three days. The newly painted white exterior, with large red crosses, indicated that it was now a hospital ship.

The medical staff initially lacked basic kit for operational conditions. Massey recalls:

'We had to set to and build this hospital. Work out how we were going to run it. On the nursing side where we were going to work...We had to build the hospital. Everything just came on board in boxes. And we did not actually know what was in all these boxes. We just had to open them up and find what was there....Everything had to be built. We had to physically put the beds together and put trolleys together.'